Defending Champ Kosgei Ready for Anything

Kenyan marathoners sometimes suffer from the same image problem at the Boston Marathon that befell Chinese athletes at the Beijing Olympics: There are so many of them, and they are all so good, that an outside observer might be tempted to think of them as machines instead of people. Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. And if you can’t remember the name of the defending Boston Marathon women’s champion, Salina Kosgei, just call her Exhibit A. Full of exuberance and personality, Kosgei is in Boston ready to defend the title she won last year in a furious sprint down Boylston Street, when she beat Dire Tune by no more than a stride (2:32:16 to 2:32:17). It was the closest women’s finish in Boston Marathon history, with American Kara Goucher a close third (2:32:25) in the most thrilling finish the women’s race has seen here.

Friday morning in Boston, Kosgei sported gold braids intertwined in her hair and a wide, relaxed smile as she met the media in preparation for Monday’s race. She insisted the gold highlights are there just because she and her hairdresser liked the color – not because she wanted to send a message to her competitors. She said she feels no pressure to repeat as champion because every race day is different, even though “everyone in Kenya is waiting for me to win it again!” she said with a smile. Monday evening, the race will be broadcast live in her home country, but Kosgei insisted she can only do her best in a deep women’s field that, she said, has at least seven legitimate contenders for the title.

Her body, too, may be a challenge. Last year after Kosgei’s triumph in Boston, she came to New York ready to make a run for a second consecutive World Marathon Majors title. But she took a hard fall in the race, banging up her knee and injuring her right hamstring. Still, she insisted on finishing the race. “I was in shape,” she said philosophically, “and I felt I should finish. But I was injured.” The knee, swollen by the time she crossed the finish line in fifth place (2:31:53), has since healed, but the hamstring injury remains. She’s decreased her mileage from a high of 250 kilometers (155 miles) a week to 120 kilometers (about 75 miles) in her preparation for Boston.

“I had to change my training” because of the hamstring, Kosgei said. “I could not train very fast, because my injury could not allow me to sprint or do much speedwork. I did do distance, but not as much as normal.”Some thought last year’s slow, tactical women’s race was, well, too slow. Kosgei’s winning time doesn’t even crack the list of the top 100 women’s performances at Boston. But Kosgei remembers things differently.

“I didn’t even notice the pace early on,” she said. “But at 30 kilometers, Kara [Goucher] noticed it was slow, and so she decided to speed up.” She took Kosgei and 2008 champion Tune of Ethiopia with her. Goucher was under intense pressure to win – some self-inflicted, some from an American public hungry for the first American Boston women’s champion since Lisa Larsen-Weidenbach won in 1985. But in the end, Kosgei and Tune had just a little more speed to call upon. Goucher lost a stride and finished third, while Kosgei unleashed a furious sprint, honed from ten years of competitive 800m racing, to beat Tune by a stride on Boylston Street. Afterwards, Tune collapsed, thinking she had won. Goucher was in tears. Kosgei was enthralled.

She knows a little about how to enjoy herself, even when the race results are disappointing. At the 2008 Olympics Kosgei entered in great shape but finished tenth. “I don’t know what happened,” she says now. “I was somehow weird! I was in shape but I couldn’t make it. It wasn’t my day.” So she took the time to check out China – including, of course, the fabled Great Wall. “The Great Wall was so great!” she asserts with a huge smile. She says she walked about three kilometers along the wall that day. Between the Great Wall, the colorful, packed Chinese markets, the athlete’s village, and the warmth of the crowds, Kosgei found a way to make a great memory out of a disappointing competition. It’s a testament to an athlete who appears ready to take whatever happens on Monday in stride.

If she wins, Kosgei would become the first woman to take two Boston titles in a row since her countrywoman Catherine Ndereba notched back-to-back win in 2004 and 2005. Kosgei’s ability on Monday will likely depend on her fitness and how aggressive the pack pushes the pace, but she knows there are always the intangibles to consider as well – especially the weather, since the 2009 race featured a cold, dreary headwind that blew in competitors’ faces all the way to Boston.

“This year is different [than 2009], you know,” she said. “There are so many [competitors], we’re all strong. I just run the race. I would say that the result will depend on the start of the race, and my colleagues, how they are going to go about it.”

However they go about it, it seems certain that a pressure-free, relaxed Salina Kosgei, comfortable in her role as defending champion, will be right on their heels.

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